So I have a new favorite place to hold a clinic. It is on the third story of a retreat center built next to the Pacific ocean, which is open to the air (which is warm and tropical) and strung with many very comfy hammocks. Going to work doesn’t seem so bad! It beats a cubicle. I will post pictures of this soon, so you all can be properly jealous.
So I was up early this morning, since the sun comes up early (around 6 am) and we have no curtains in our little dormitory. So when the sun comes up, everyone gets up! We breakfasted in fine style, with omelets and a warm rice cereal (and excellent coffee — yay!), and then set up upstairs for our first clinic day. It started off slow but I guess word gets around, because by the end of the day we had seen 64 people. Not bad!
The people here all speak Spanish, which is a change from Rio Dulce, where the majority spoke some to no Spanish and mostly spoke Q’eqchi (kek’ChEE). When we were clearly not communicating, I never knew whether it was my limited Spanish, or theirs!
It was a pretty classic day in a primary care clinic — lots of headaches, lots of belly pain, coughs and colds, and a few interesting rashes to remind us that we’re in Guatemala where the bugs reign supreme. One little boy at the end of the clinic came in with a high fever for the last several days, and we packed him off for lab tests for malaria and dengue fever. Now we really remember where we are! He is coming back tomorrow with results, so I will try to update all of my dedicated readers on what the mystery diagnosis is. It’s almost like watching House.
